


How Winter Came to Be

by the5leggedCricket



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the5leggedCricket/pseuds/the5leggedCricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there were two boys, a girl, and a king. This is the story of how winter came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Winter Came to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Aggy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/argentsleeper) for the beta.

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a small village called Ealdor, where everyone knew each other, and everyone helped each other. Their biggest worry was the amount of food after a particularly harsh winter and their biggest fear was that bandits would come to steal their coins and grains.  
  
But the boy, Merlin, was special. He had bigger worries and bigger fears. He had powers that no one could know about. For if they did, he would be banished at the very least, and get burned at the stake with his mother at the worst. So when, one day, the boy’s mother discovered that he had told his best friend—his only friend—that he had magic, she immediately packed a rattled bag and sent him on his way with nothing but food, the clothes on his back, and a letter to Gaius, an old family friend.  
  
It took Merlin three days and three nights, but eventually he arrived in Camelot. But instead of finding the safety his mother had promised him, he was met with violence, tyranny, and the promise of death if he was ever caught doing magic. You see, where Camelot once had been the Shangri-La of her time, a promise of wealth and prosperity, it had now become a place of fear and despair. Magic had been outlawed, and the people had learned to distrust each other, afraid not only to encounter a sorcerer, but also to be accused of sorcery themselves.  
  
Merlin was shocked at this, but Gaius took him under his wings and probably would’ve trained him to be his successor as royal physician, if not for the feast in honour of the Lady Morgana’s birthday. Because of his affiliation with Gaius, the boy, too, was invited to witness the spectacle of the Lady Helen’s singing skills. But instead of awe and delightment, the audience was filled with dread and horror when an imposter tried to kill the king’s ward.  
  
Merlin, using the magic he would be killed for without a second thought, slowed down time and saved her right on time. Despite being a tyrant and a mass murderer, the king still cared about this girl only. And so it was that he rewarded the boy with his destiny.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a big city called Camelot. But he wasn’t just any citizen, no. He was the king’s only son. One day he would become king himself, and all his life he was raised with exactly that goal in mind.  
  
Arthur was Camelot’s pride. Everywhere he went, people relished his presence, admired him, and gave him everything his heart could desire. He was a bit spoiled. Until he wasn’t anymore.  
  
For his father the king had made magic his enemy, and magic had made him its enemy, seeking revenge and retribution. So, one day, while the prince was practicing his sword play, a witch attacked him with the magic Arthur was defenseless to. She laid a spell of the worst kind on the prince.  
  
As the knights and citizens watched, ice crept over the prince’s sword, until nothing but a cold blue remained. The prince dropped the sword, and it broke as it fell to the ground. The prince grabbed another sword, but that, too, got swallowed by ice. By now one of his knights had run the witch through, but no one noticed. They were all staring at the prince.  
  
Arthur’s once golden hair turned in a white so pale it had a blue shine to it. His eyes were no longer sky-blue but stormy and dark like a frozen river. But his hands, his hands were the worst of all. The prince grabbed random items, but everything his hands touched got covered in ice. Not that anyone knew what ice was, for there were no seasons and the temperature was never too warm and never too cold. But they knew enough to see that everything he touched died. They knew enough to know it was sorcery.  
  
When news reached the king, he had the prince shackled until he could decide what course of action to take. But the shackles froze and fell away from the prince’s hands, and the prince got thrown into the farthest cell in the dungeons with the order not to touch anything.  
  
The king pondered the whole night.  
  
By morning, he had reached a decision.  
  
By morning, the whole cell had been turned into a glacier.  
  
By morning, the king brought the prince news that proved his heart had been turned into ice as well.  
  
Arthur was banished to a cabin in the woods, to a life of isolation and seclusion. He was left alone to his fears. All his life he’d been taught about the evil of magic, and now he had magic himself. First there was fear, then came the hatred, and eventually the anger at the magic. It had taken away everything; his family, his circlet. His home.  
  
In the beginning, the king had fearful servants sent with food and drink. But as time passed, his son disappeared from his mind, and the intervals between the visits grew longer and longer until eventually no one showed up anymore. The servants might have remembered the prince at the edge of the kingdom, but if they did, they were glad to be rid of him. He was tainted by magic, after all, and everyone knew that magic was evil. He was beyond saving.  
  
The prince knew he had to provide for himself. But he still had no control over his hands and they kept freezing his surroundings. He didn’t mind the cold that he was immune to and barely felt, but he couldn’t hunt for food, freezing his utensils and prey.  
  
He grew to hate the magic more than he ever had before, to hate the blood running through his veins, pumping the magic he was infested with to every corner of his body. Sometimes he tried to slash them open, so he could purge himself from his tainted blood. Sometimes he would succeed, more often he would not, too upset to control his powers and freezing the knife before it could reach his skin. But no matter how much he tried, it would never be enough.  
  
Hunger and necessity forced his hand and he learned to control his emotions with meditation. The more emotional he felt, the farther the ice spread and thicker the white puffs of his breath became. After a while, he could forget the self-hatred and loathing long enough to shoot a deer or to eat a rabbit before his anger could turn it into useless ice. But the cold kept growing around his heart, left to fester in the prince’s loneliness.  
  
Time passed, and as the king grew older, he also grew worried about his succession. Once more he remembered the son that he had banned from everyone’s minds all these years ago.  
  
“What if the magic has lost its hold on my son,” he thought, “and he’s still fit to take the crown?”  
  
So the king sent a servant to the cabin close to the borders, who told him about the prince who had seemed normal enough, if one overlooked the hair and the eyes (he had not seen the prince’s freezing grip on the doorknob, and thought the curse to have disappeared), and the king decided to invite the prince to some official events so that the public could get used to him again.  
  
But he needed someone to keep him in check, to see if in all this time the boy’s loyalties hadn’t turned against his own father, who’d locked him away in a cage of trees and vast space. And that’s when a mere village boy showed his bravery. And the king knew he had found a manservant for his son.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time, there were two boys. They couldn’t be more different.  
  
One was a peasant, the other fallen royalty.  
  
One had hair that was dark as the night, and the other was as pale as the snow that piled up in his room when he had a nightmare.  
  
One was born with magic, the other would rather die than have to live with it even a second longer.  
  
One was love, the other was hatred.  
  
But despite their differences—or maybe because of them—they were destined for each other, two sides of a coin, pushed together by fate and a king who’d ordered Merlin to join Arthur at his cabin so he could keep an eye on him. At the first sign that Arthur was still cursed or in any way a threat to the peace, Merlin was to report to the king.  
  
And although Merlin could see the strange cold substance that sprouted from the prince’s hands when he was angry at Merlin’s arrival, or sad at his own demise, or afraid of life, he could also see his scars, and in them the innocence of a young boy expelled by his family.  
  
And although Arthur could see the reason behind the peasant’s arrival, and the darkness in his eyes when he thought no one was looking, he could also feel his warmth when he clasped Arthur’s hands in his, and see for himself that he was not running off to the king to betray his secret.  
  
They were just two boys, both scared for their life, both with their own shadows, forced together, but growing closer and closer in their search of comfort and safety until no space remained at all and nothing could tear them apart.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time, there was a girl called Morgana. She had nightmares and dreams that somehow always managed to come true, and when she woke with a gasp sometimes her curtains would be on fire or her mirror lay shattered on the floor. For as long as she could, she tried to deny the truth, but after a while even the royal physician’s reassurances that she was imagining things didn’t bring comfort. His shifting eyes betrayed what she had long feared. She had magic in a kingdom where even the mention of magic could get you killed. Her own brother the prince, though beloved he once was, had been banished to the outskirts of the kingdom for being cursed.  
  
She hated her father for it. She used to beg him to reconsider, to condemn him for his heartlessness, to try and escape so she could find her brother. But years passed and with age came wisdom and the realisation that when it came to magic the king would never change his mind. She learned to keep her mouth shut. She learned to pretend for a living and to play the games of court.  
  
By the time she had to face the reality of having magic, she knew to smile and nod by day, to wait for the doors to her chambers to shut before letting the fear get to her and crying herself to sleep.  
  
So when she heard that the prince would come to her birthday feast, she immediately started plotting ways to escape together. Together, they would be safe and finally have a chance at happiness.  
  
The days flew by and on December 20 two cloaked, hunched over figures entered the courtyard. Morgana knew it to be her brother and the boy that had her saved the year before. She wanted to enclose her brother in her arms as soon as possible, but they were huddled into a small room at the other side of the castle, with guards keeping everyone out—or the two boys in.  
  
The night fell, dawn broke. The day of the feast had arrived.  
  
The girl sat at the head table, right next to the king. She was the princess of the night. Her brother and his servant were stuffed into a corner, but the white hair and paleness were just as much of a spotlight as her low-cut dress and position.  
  
It took her the better part of the night to break free from the king, but eventually his attention was diverted and she was able to make her way over to the brother she’d been without for too long.  
  
Knowing the king would interrupt when he saw them together, she bought them some time and led him out of the Great Hall into an alcove of the corridors. The serving boy stayed behind to watch the king.  
  
After all these years, everything had changed so much. Her brother was not who he used to be, but the young boy whom she’d shared her grief, happiness, and memories with, was still there.  
  
Morgana gripped his arms, to take note of all the physical changes. There would be more than enough time to discover the emotional ones, once they were safe.  
  
The boy gripped her arms, staring at her in wonder, in question at the fear on her face. Because afraid she was. Afraid of what had happened, afraid of what could happen still, afraid of what the past held and the future might hold.  
  
Oh, how she was more afraid than she’d ever been.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time, there was a king, old and afraid of what he did not understand.  
  
All men are mortal, and all that is mortal makes mistakes.  
  
This particular king had made many mistakes, but the most important one was to let his fear of magic grow so strong he’d pushed away his only family. His son had been banished, his daughter had left of her own will, emotionally if not yet physically, even though he didn’t know it yet, too focused on his hatred of magic, too blind of everything that wasn’t revenge.  
  
As far as he was aware, his daughter was the only thing he’d left, the only thing left to protect from whatever. From whomever.  
  
So it didn’t take long for him to notice that she’d left the room. He called the guards, fearing the worst, and when they told him she’d left with the prince, his fears weren’t eased.  
  
You see, he was nowhere near trusting his son again. If there still was magic left in his body, his mind could very well have been thoroughly poisoned in the time that had passed. Even if there was no magic left, years of isolation might have done the same.  
  
He went after his daughter. Someone tried to stop him, but he pushed them aside, and burst into the corridors. One of the guards pointed him towards an alcove, and the scene he stumbled upon there, made his heart grow cold with fear.  
  
The prince, his son, was gripping the girl tightly. Fear was clear in her eyes. Frost was spreading over her arms.  
  
The king did the only thing he knew to do.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time, there was a boy. He used to live in a small village called Ealdor, where everyone knew each other, and everyone helped each other. Their biggest worry was the amount of food after a particularly harsh winter and their biggest fear was that bandits would come to steal their coins and grains.  
  
But the boy, Merlin, was special. He had bigger worries and bigger fears. He had powers that no one could know about. For if they did, he would be banished at the very least, and get burned at the stake with his mother at the worst. So when, one day, the boy’s mother discovered that he had told his best friend—his only friend—that he had magic, she immediately packed a rattled bag and sent him on his way with nothing but food, the clothes on his back, and a letter to Gaius, an old family friend.  
  
The boy moved to Camelot, where he saved a princess and got himself a job as the manservant of the prince, his destiny.  
  
Destinies can be terrible burdens, but Merlin grew to love his.  
  
But once upon a time, during a feast of just a girl, Merlin failed to protect Arthur. He failed to stop the king from going after them. He failed to warn them in time.  
  
He failed to do anything but follow the king into the corridors. He failed to do anything.  
  
The king drew his sword and ran the boy through like the witch had been run through all these years ago.  
  
*  
  
Once upon a time there were two boys, a girl, and a king.  
  
The king let his fear reign.  
  
The girl saw her fears come through.  
  
One boy fell.  
  
The other fell with him.  
  
Merlin took all the magic he possessed. He took all the cold from Arthur’s body and curse. He took it all and gave it to the world to feel his pain.  
  
His cry was heard everywhere. The curse was felt by all. Ever since, when 21 December comes around, the world will go cold and get covered by snow and ice, remembering the day that Merlin lost his destiny.  



End file.
